


Corps-à-Corps

by Alsike



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Fencing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-20
Updated: 2015-04-20
Packaged: 2018-03-25 00:08:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3789337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alsike/pseuds/Alsike
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fencing AU</p><p>Clarke and Lexa used to fence at the same club though they never really spoke. After a bad bout, Clarke defects to Ark Fencing and switches to saber. </p><p>It doesn't end there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Corps-à-Corps

**Author's Note:**

> SOMEHOW, I had to write this. I don't even watch this show, but I LOVE this ship. And man, fencing. :D

Lexa was the reason Clarke didn't fence foil anymore. She still watched it, especially if Lexa was competing, seeing her body bend into deep lunges, her arm twist and strike like a snake, the unexpected thrust at the end of a fleche, her opponent dropping his guard, thinking he was safe, and then getting the point of her blade in the back.

Clarke knew about getting stabbed in the back.

They'd trained at the same studio once: Trikrew Fencing Academy, in DC, downtown - one of the more dangerous areas. Clarke's mom didn't like her going there, but it was a good club. Indra, the coach, had been in the Olympics for foil a few times, and had the medals to show it. Lexa was her protege.

Clarke had loved to watch their lessons, moving in sync, tight steps, one forward, the other backward up and down the strip, as their blades flickered into strikes and parries. Clarke knew she'd never be good enough to get that sort of attention from Indra, but... she wanted to be good enough for Lexa to notice.

Anya was Indra's previous protege. She had an olympic medal too, planning on more, and now fenced for Ohio State. She stopped by the studio once during a break from school and called Clarke over.

"Let's bout," she'd said, and Clarke had gaped at her.

Clarke hadn't kept score of how many touches against, but she'd landed three good ones on Anya, and each time Anya had smiled and given her a sharp, acknowledging nod. "You have good form," Anya said, taking off her mask. "Precise. Maybe a little blunt for foil." She eyed Clarke consideringly. "You don't bend," she added. "Lexa, that brat, is all twists. You can't pin her down. That's not your strength. You're decisive. You plan ahead and execute your actions. It's not a bad thing. Keep at it." Anya patted her shoulder with the side of her blade. "Maybe think about saber?"

Clarke had hardly been able to breathe with the honor of getting that kind of advice.

She'd worked hard. Her lessons with Indra were perfunctory, all 'lunge deeper, relax your shoulder, don't drag your foot.' But after one practice bout, where she'd worked her ass off to keep it four-four and then, at the last minute, planted her point right in Bellamy's collarbone, Lexa had made eye-contact and given her an approving nod.

In the locker room later, Lexa, mask off, eyeliner a muddy smear around her eyes, her hair a mess of frizzing braids, mostly flattened from the fencing gear, gave her another look. "That was a good bout," she said.

Clarke couldn't look away. "Thanks." How could a sweaty girl in a plastic chest-protector and white knickers be so attractive? "Maybe I'll have to fence you sometime."

Lexa offered her a tight smile. "Maybe."

But they hadn't fenced in practice. It wasn't until the next tournament, the first round of Direct Elimination bouts (DEs) where their names were called, and Clarke stepped up to awkwardly plug herself into her reel and attach it to the hook on her lamé. It was an old lamé, and the hook was always slipping. Lexa had a perfect shiny new lame. She didn't look like an idiot when she hooked into it either.

"Test weapons."

Beeeeeep. Beeeeep.

Lexa tossed her head, swinging her curls back over her shoulders, and put on her mask. Clarke took a breath and put hers on as well. _P_ _lan ahead and execute your actions_ , Anya had said. She was ready.

Lexa was good. She was fast and unpredictable. And she moved like she'd been born in on-guard position. Clarke was always a bit out of her depth more than a few steps away from the line. Points that lasted longer than a few seconds destroyed her. But this was her chance, right? She had to step it up if she wanted to be noticed.

Then spotted it. There was a moment, right after the _alle_ _z_ , where Lexa was waiting, not decisive, not responsive. Clarke moved fast, she went deep, she disengaged in midair and planted the tip of her weapon in Lexa's shoulder. Her blade bent in a long curved arc.

" _Touche_!"

She did it again, and as Lexa went back into on-guard her body language was a little off balance, a little scared.

Clarke evened up the score with a minute left. Indra called time out.

Clarke looked around. Indra was her coach too, but there was nothing kind in her eyes. She was scolding Lexa quietly, hand on her writst, jerking her arm around like it was a puppet. "She's nowhere near you. Finish this."

The words were a slap. And then Lexa made it physical. She came in hard, pushing her off the on-guard line. She dropped back and pulled her out of her comfort zone. And Clarke marched right into it, losing eight points in a minute.

Lexa took off her mask to shake hands at the end. She looked like a raccoon again. Only idiots wore make-up to fencing bouts, but her darkened eyes stared blankly past Clarke as they shook. It was just another bout. Just another win for the untouchable Lexa Woods.

Eliminated, Clarke found her mom in the stands. "Oh, how are you doing dear?"

"I'm quitting," Clarke said.

Abby huffed an unpleasantly condescending noise.

"Fine," Clarke said. "I want to change clubs. I want a coach that's on my side."

"This is your thing. Sort it out, Clarke."

* * *

Ark Fencing was new and unestablished. Their foil coach, Kane, was nothing to write home about. He did French style, which Clarke found kind of fiddly. But the atmosphere was better. For one, people were actually friendly. Octavia, young and exuberant and wildly passionate about both saber fencing and the saber coach, who, Clarke admitted, was quite hunky, and just _nice_ , adopted her immediately, and introduced her to Raven, who didn't fence because of a bum knee, but fixed all their equipment and made lamés.

"Hey," the saber coach said to her one day, "You're Clarke Griffin, right?"

"Yeah?"

"Anya mentioned you. She said you weren't cut out for foil, but would kill at saber. Want to give it a shot?"

Lincoln tossed her a weapon. Clarke blinked at it. She didn't even know how to hold it properly.

"You know Anya?"

"OSU alums." He frowned at her and fixed her grip. "Okay, this is parry 3, your new on-guard. Four is here, and five is here, and... that's pretty much all you need, though 2 can be handy for wrist shots."

Clarke found the adjustment to saber positions frustrating, but she liked Lincoln's lessons. They were straightforward, not fancy stuff, and they were heavy on the strategy.

"Russian method. We don't care if we look good. We just want to win."

Women's Saber was reasonably new to the area, so there weren't too many people who excelled at it. Clarke became one of the people who did quite quickly.

She liked winning. She liked it a lot.

It was also good that the Women's foil bouts and the Women's saber bouts were often scheduled simultaneously. Not watching Lexa and knowing that Lexa wasn't watching her... it was only a good thing.

* * *

That Saturday's tournament wasn't a USFA qualifying event, but a chance to win was a chance to win. Abby dropped Clarke off at the high school gym and gave her an air kiss. "Go, stab some people," she said, and Clarke sighed and watched her drive off.

Then she saw a familiar van with the name Trikrew Fencing Academy stenciled on the side, and ducked the hell inside before anyone saw her.

"Guess who's slumming it in saber today!" Octavia popped up beside her, always startling.

"What? Who?" Clarke said, checking over her bodycords, though they'd been fine when Raven had tested them on Thursday. The weird tension in her body was just because she was tired. Saturday morning tournaments should not start this early.

"Lexa Woods."

Clarke froze. "You're joking."

"Nope. I heard, actually, that she fucked up so hard at the Penn State Open that her coach has forbidden her from touching a foil for a month."

Clarke just stared at Octavia, uncomprehending. "What?"

"Yeah, she didn't even make DEs. It was brutal."

Clarke let her eyes search over the gym, and found Lexa, sitting alone on the edge of the bleachers, hunched over her knees, wearing a saber lamé.

This was bad.

They weren't in the same pool for the first round. And they were in different brackets for the DEs. Clarke was tense as hell, and yet it made her fencing better, sharper, more precise. Octavia, knocked out after the first DE - mostly for getting angry in the middle of it and taking too big steps - came to stand next to Lincoln and cheer Clarke on.

Clarke didn't really hear cheering. Once the mask was on she heard only her opponent and the judge. But she appreciated the thought.

She didn't meet Lexa until the semi-finals.

"Woods and Griffin! Strip six!"

Clarke's hand slipped twice as she was attaching herself to the reel, her bodycord jerking embarrassingly half out of her lamé as the pulley wound up. She didn't look at Lexa as she tugged the cord out of her glove, making sure she had enough give to keep flexibility in her wrist. And then she did look, keeping her face impassive as she stepped towards her, tapping Lexa's mask with her saber to check and see if the electricity was flowing.

Lexa wasn't wearing eyeliner this time.

And she smiled, not really a smile, but a slight tightening of her lips - recognition, acknowledgment, Clarke had no idea.

 _No freaking out_ , Clarke told herself. _Just kill her_.

"Ready, _Fence!"_

Planning ahead worked in saber. Clarke opened hard with a half-step fake attack, parry-riposte. Lexa staggered back to the line after the touch, already off balance. Then boom, second point, catching her in preparation as she hesitated to strike, expecting another feint.

But the third start, Lexa was ready. And the fight began.

Somehow, with a saber in her hand, Clarke was more comfortable on the ends of the strip. She liked the vibration in her guard when she caught a hard parry. She liked the way it felt to flick her blade right under Lexa's wrist.

Lexa was fast, as always, and her weapon snaked like lightning, but Clarke could hold her own now.

"Fence!" and Clarke jerked forward then leapt back, swiveling her arm out of the way of the point of Lexa's blade, at full extension, her body in a perfect lunge. And Clarke knew that she could recover as fast as lightning, so with one step she took a flying leap, a balestra, beating aside her blade and striking the side of her mask.

"Touche! That's bout!"

Clarke looked up at the machine. 15-9. She had won, by six points.

When Lexa took off her mask, she was sweaty and red-faced, all fury and frustration. Clarke loved it, loved this, rising in exultation. Lexa was all spikes, and Clarke wanted to stab herself on them. Their hands locked together, the shake as much about dominance as the bout had been, and Clarke didn't let go. Lexa's arm was tight, trying to get away, and Clarke just pulled Lexa's hand toward her. Her body came along involuntarily, and Clarke kissed her.

It was a rough, unplanned smear of lips, Lexa frozen like a petrified stone. Clarke let go, feeling a huge rush of embarrassment flush over her. You don't just _kiss_ your opponent like that.

Lexa took a staggering step back, and then twisted, fumbling one handed with her bodycord to release herself. She fled, tripping, ungracefully, over the reel and barely dodging a tangle-net of bags and abandoned weapons. Then she burst out of the doors of the gym and was gone.

"AWESOME!" Clarke heard Octavia shrill. "You kicked her _butt_. And then, man, kissing her like that? Way to take away, like, all of the pride she had left."

Clarke looked over at Octavia, suddenly horrified. "What?"

"You humiliated her," Lincoln said, quietly.

"Griffin!" The judge called. "Bring this paper to the bout committee."

Clarke looked from Lincoln's still face to the judge, waving the results sheet impatiently. "I... okay."

She lost her next bout. It wasn't a surprise. Focusing was hard, and it was one of the awesome college girls anyways.

Behind the bleachers she stripped off her gear, carefully stowing it in her bag, trying to pretend that being tidy and responsible was the most important thing. But even that couldn't last for more than a few minutes. Stopping in the bathroom to stare at her disastrous mask hair and change shirts, she splashed cold water on her face and gave in. It was time to go looking for Lexa.

She found her outside, sitting on the rock wall that overlooked the parking lot. She was wearing a sweaty t-shirt that clung to her skin and her knickers, suspenders hanging down. She was barefoot, and Clarke stared at her toes for a little too long before finding the nerve to speak.

"Hey," Clarke said.

Lexa looked up, eyes red, hair a wreck, and almost seemed to snarl at her.

Clarke put her hands up. "I just... I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize for _beating_ me." Lexa said, scowling and looking away.

"Not for that."

Lexa didn't move, but her shoulders seemed to lose a tiny bit of their tension. "Doesn't matter."

Clarke carefully settled herself onto the wall next to her. She didn't know what to say. _I like you? I like kicking your ass and making you my bitch. Are you into that?_ Clarke rolled her eyes at herself. _Clearly not._ "I... didn't know you fenced saber."

Lexa grunted unhelpfully.

"You _really_ don't like losing."

Lexa's toes flexed as if she wanted to kick something, but was too controlled to do something as stupid that while barefoot. Her fingers tensed on the rock wall. "I don't like Indra being _right_."

Clarke crossed her arms, staring at the bare flagpole outside the main entrance to the school. "She was right about me before," she said, still bitter about it. "I'm nowhere near you in foil. You beat me like it was easy." It had been easy. Lexa had taken advantage of all her weaknesses.

Not that Lexa herself hadn't already been a distraction.

Lexa looked over at her with narrowed eyes. "Is that why you left the studio?"

Clarke met her gaze, jaw tight. "To be honest, I didn't think anybody would notice. Indra was supposed to be my coach too, but she only talked to you. I didn't even get a 'don't drag your back foot.'"

"Because you were doing _fine_." Lexa's nose wrinkled in disgust. "I was falling on my ass, fighting you."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better? That the only reason I was keeping up with you was because you were screwing up?"

Lexa glared at her. Clarke glared back.

"Why did you _kiss_ me like that?" Lexa snarled, sounding disgusted.

"I don't know!" Clarke snapped. "Because you piss me off?"

"We've hardly even _spoken_ to each other!"

"Somehow you still manage it!" Clarke looked away. "You don't notice me. I hate it when you look right through me."

"I notice you," Lexa said.

Clarke's hands tightened in their resting place on the stone wall. Slowly, she looked at Lexa. Lexa didn't look angry anymore. She looked guilty, meeting Clarke's eyes for only a moment, before she turned her head to stare at the pavement. She took an audible breath, and Clarke waited, her stomach tying itself into the most complicated of sailor's knots.

"I was upset when you left," Lexa said, her tone flat, unhappy. "Indra said it would just end up being like the last time."

"The last time what?"

Lexa hunched a little deeper. "There was a girl. Epee. She was... She went to train in Poland, for the Olympic team, and I imploded. I didn't even qualify for junior nationals that year."

"Oh," Clarke said. There was a strange tingling in the tips of her fingers, and her lips, and her ears. Did this mean...?

"Fencing is ninety percent psychological. Feelings just screw it up."

"I heard you went down hard at the Penn State Open."

Lexa hunched deeper.

Clarke let out a slow controlled breath. She hadn't meant to humiliate her more. But this... this might actually _mean_ something. Carefully, she put her hand on Lexa's knee, feeling the tight fabric of her knickers stretched over firm muscle.

"Maybe–" Clarke said, "Maybe good feelings are less distracting?"

Lexa swallowed, larynx moving in her throat. Slowly, she looked over, her back straightening slightly, staring into Clarke's eyes. And then her gaze shifted down, fixing on Clarke's lips. "I don't want..." She hesitated. She sounded like she was going to say no, but at the same time she was leaning in, their shoulders brushing. They were close enough for Clarke to feel her warmth through her clammy sweat-damp t-shirt. Clarke ignored her words. Words were always feints. It was the body that told the truth, and hesitation was just too tempting for a saber fencer to resist.

Clarke went in for the kiss. Lexa met her half way.

 _Double touch_.

* * *

"Ahem."

Clarke broke away from Lexa's warm, eager mouth, and looked up to find Indra glowering down at them like a disappointed sentinel.

"Lexa," Indra said, her voice flat and unmoved. "I have your gear. I assume you will get yourself home?"

Clarke felt her face heat up. She looked at Lexa, who faced Indra down, utterly unmoved.

"Yes."

"And I'll see you at six-thirty sharp on Monday, with your foil." Indra's eyebrow quirked slightly. "Now that you've gotten this out of your system."

Lexa flinched at that, looking down, but she didn't pull away from where she was pressed against Clarke's side. "Right, mom."

Clarke blinked, confused. _Mom?_

Indra's eyes turned to Clarke, and Clarke quailed internally, but did her best to not show it. "Good job, Clarke," she said. "Anya was right. You make an excellent saber fencer."

Utterly bewildered by the sudden compliments, Clarke gaped. "Umm, thanks?"

Indra's eyes narrowed. "You're still dragging your back foot, though. Work on that."

She strode away, towards the Trikrew van, and Clarke felt herself begin to shake with relief. "Oh my _god_ ," she said. "She... she gave me a compliment."

Clarke turned just enough to see that Lexa was grinning at her, amusement on her face. "It wasn't _me_ you wanted to notice you, was it? It was my _mom_."

"Shut up," Clarke groaned, covering her face. "I beat you. You can't tease me."

"I beat you before. We're even."

When Clarke peeked out, Lexa was close, eyes bright, smiling at her. Clarke couldn't help grinning like an idiot back. "Rematch?" She asked, but her eyes dropped to Lexa's mouth.

"Yeah," Lexa said, her voice rough and a little breathy. And then she tangled her fingers in Clarke's messy hair and kissed her.

Clarke kissed her back.

There was no way she was going to let Lexa win without a fight.

 


End file.
